This has always plagued my mind, why is there so much hate for Internet Explorer and so much love for Chrome? I'm an IE user btw and I <3 IE10, so if you are going to shoot me, make it quick.

Chrome publishes all this propaganda about all the amazing features it offers, but then I look at Internet Explorer, and it does the same thing, ok it defaults to Bing, but a couple of clicks and you have Google, or yahoo, or ask Jeeves (assuming that's still a thing).

I often ask people why they use chrome (showing my tattoo of IE symbol (metaphor)), and they yell at me saying its so much faster, really people believe that? even if it is faster, people explain its noticeably faster.

I just did a quick test,

[searching on google] can cats fly - IE 10: 0.20s Chrome: 0.19s

a whole .01 of a second (but bare in mind I have a few more pug ins on IE)

So why all the hate for IE?

What browser do you use and why?

Mobile Developer at PawPrint Games ltd.

(Not "mobile" as in I move around a lot, but as in phones, mobile phone developer)

(Although I am mobile. no, not as in a babies mobile, I move from place to place)

Haven't used IE for anything serious for a long time now. Last time I used it was when I was writing some html5 code and wanted to see how it behaved in different browsers.

So, i don't know about now, but in the past, IE had some pretty bad security problems, had no real support for ad blocking, no tabbed browsing, and didn't seem to support many web-standards. The security issues were in small part due to the fact that IE was the most popular, by far, browser - so it was the target of most exploits. A lot of people felt that that was only a small part of it, though, and the major security problem was just bad programming.

Recent versions also seemed to have support for other things like tabs, ad blocking etc... not that's all of the features.

I don't hate IE or its users, I just won't use it again. To be fair, my experience with Firefox was equally bad at one point, with a lot of sluggish elements, crashes and other crap. I also don't use Firefox that often. I also don't use Chrome due to the tracking build into it. Yes, google has a ton of my information, but that doesn't mean I want to freely give them more.

The browsers I use, in order of most used to least used: (also the only ones I have installed)

Opera, SRWare Iron, Firefox, and on rare occasion IE.

I use Opera for maybe 98% of my browsing, and Iron for the other 2%. Firefox and IE get no love from me.

why is there so much hate for Internet Explorer and so much love for Chrome?

I think the issue is just part of the browser wars over time.

Almost universally the browser in the lead has been the one with rapid iterations and no cost.

The Mosaic/Netscape era from '93-'97, Mosaic/Netscape was focused on growth, usability, and reliability.

Back then everyone who wasn't using Mozilla Netscape was just weird. There were graphics like "If you can see this, you are using Mozilla"; using a text-based browser like Lynx earned derogatory labels. (Even so, I verify my sites on Lynx even today because that's basically how search engines see the site.) Arena was slow and basically just there to test the standard on.

Then Internet Explorer came out, and grew rapidly. IE1.0 came out in August 95, was at version 3.0 in 1996, and version 4 that shipped with Windows 98. At that point few companies were actually innovating and rapidly iterating. When it shipped with the OS there was little incentive for most users to upgrade, so they didn't.

The tide turned. Netscape fumbled, and there was much open mocking and loathing of Netscape.

Forward to 2005, at that point Opera was still doing rapid iterations and had many good features but was a paid app. When Opera become free it re-invigorated the market. Their browser had tabbed browsing, integrated source viewer, integrated BitTorrent client, and was the first to pass the ACID2 test. Suddenly Mozilla had competition and IE needed to take action.

So why all the hate for IE?

Internet Explorer was built into the operating system and most people didn't upgrade. They moved to IE6 for XP and never upgraded. Many people are still on it because they are still on old, unpached versions of Windows XP.

When many people think "Internet Explorer", they think about IE6 that was released back in 2001.

Like all major software it has been shown to have many bugs. The integration with the OS meant those bugs were often severe.

The goodwill was further eroded by the users continuing to use IE6 because they don't know better. You see the grandmas running IE6 on their unpatched windows 98 and XP boxes and equate it to the entire product line.

Much of the hate comes because that is the frequent mental image of an Internet Explorer user. It's a grandma with an ancient computer running ancient software.

Last time I used it was when I was writing some html5 code and wanted to see how it behaved in different browsers.

Today it is all about HTML5 support and guidance. They all want a share of the HTML5 standard, but they need to prove themselves relevant in order to do so.

So each browser is doing their own marketing to try to prove that they are the One True Path to HTML5 and future relevancy.

The hope is that whoever 'wins' HTML5 dominance will be the leader in marketshare and money over the next few years. There is an incredible financial incentive for being the victor, so the browser wars heated up.

Just build a website that even thinks about doing anything fancy, and then discover that IE doesn't support xyz capability. They liked to have their own way to do things, and while your code would work on 3/4 browsers IE always tended to be the one that just didn't display things the right way, and i'd have to run around looking for a patch. Also lets not forget that tons of users use a variety of diffrent versions of IE, so now you have to make sure you site runs the same across each iteration. Some of this is excusable(such as using something that came out after the particular version of the browser was released.) at the end of the day, developing for IE tends to be a pain in the ass, which is why i have hated it for so long. Of couse IE10 is leagues better than it's predecessors, so i no longer have an undying bate of IE.

Just build a website that even thinks about doing anything fancy, and then discover that IE doesn't support xyz capability. They liked to have their own way to do things, and while your code would work on 3/4 browsers IE always tended to be the one that just didn't display things the right way, and i'd have to run around looking for a patch. Also lets not forget that tons of users use a variety of diffrent versions of IE, so now you have to make sure you site runs the same across each iteration. Some of this is excusable(such as using something that came out after the particular version of the browser was released.) at the end of the day, developing for IE tends to be a pain in the ass, which is why i have hated it for so long. Of couse IE10 is leagues better than it's predecessors, so i no longer have an undying bate of IE.

Anything over IE8 is pretty solid. I honestly fix more Firefox quirks than IE these days. Feels good not to have to support IE6 and IE7!

Because for as long as we've run the site.. there has been the Netscape/Safari/Firefox/Chrome/etc way of making a web page.. and the IE way. The Microsoft folks burned a ton of web devs for a long time on their attempts to force everybody to come up with special hacks to support IE. Now the hatefest is a byproduct of there being several extremely viable replacement candidates that everyone can pretty much say piss off to Microsoft and IE.

My hatred is a new thing, personally, and unrelated to IE6 (although I did hate it back then, that hate faded). My new hate is entirely unrational, and entirely fueled by those godawful annoying hipster-targeted ads that keep interrupting shows I watch, with volume set at about 6 notches above the volume of the show. God, I hate that crap. I hate that crap so bad.

they yell at me saying its so much faster, really people believe that? even if it is faster, people explain its noticeably faster.

I just did a quick test,
[searching on google] can cats fly - IE 10: 0.20s Chrome: 0.19s

a whole .01 of a second (but bare in mind I have a few more pug ins on IE

Do they mean that it fetches search results faster?
On my PC, when I launch chrome, the window appears instantaneously (a fraction of a second). When I launch IE, it takes several seconds to appear and make itself ready, which feels like an eternity now ;P

My hatred is a new thing, personally, and unrelated to IE6 (although I did hate it back then, that hate faded). My new hate is entirely unrational, and entirely fueled by those godawful annoying hipster-targeted ads that keep interrupting shows I watch, with volume set at about 6 notches above the volume of the show. God, I hate that crap. I hate that crap so bad.

[flame war risk]

oh come on, that better than:

Want to download flash? you probably want google chrome too, let me download that as well

its not just flash that does it, more and more sites are doing it, its a plague affecting the internet

they yell at me saying its so much faster, really people believe that? even if it is faster, people explain its noticeably faster.

I just did a quick test,
[searching on google] can cats fly - IE 10: 0.20s Chrome: 0.19s

a whole .01 of a second (but bare in mind I have a few more pug ins on IE

Do they mean that it fetches search results faster?
On my PC, when I launch chrome, the window appears instantaneously (a fraction of a second). When I launch IE, it takes several seconds to appear and make itself ready, which feels like an eternity now ;P

yeah the search results where faster generated

surly that's because the hope page is preloaded..

Mobile Developer at PawPrint Games ltd.

(Not "mobile" as in I move around a lot, but as in phones, mobile phone developer)

(Although I am mobile. no, not as in a babies mobile, I move from place to place)

its not just flash that does it, more and more sites are doing it, its a plague affecting the internet

Same with those dumb "download managers" from CNET or whatever. I swear if you're not paying attention during installation you'll end up with three extra browsers and a few thousand spyware programs bundled in. I mean, who really wants (let alone use) this kind of software installation? If I want a browser, I'm going to download one at the official website, not going to hunt for a spyware-infested one. Surely this fad should have died out years ago, but no, people need more toolbars. We need to tell whoever is still downloading this crap to give it a rest and cleanse every computer they have ever touched with holy water.

Let's just say the internet is a bloated place.

“If I understand the standard right it is legal and safe to do this but the resulting value could be anything.”

On my PC, IE launches just as quick as chrome or firefox, and i too feel that 1 second is an eternity, but i don't get that second on my IE.

Modern IE slow launches are usually not IE but plugins loaded at startup, disable em.

they yell at me saying its so much faster, really people believe that? even if it is faster, people explain its noticeably faster.

I just did a quick test,
[searching on google] can cats fly - IE 10: 0.20s Chrome: 0.19s

a whole .01 of a second (but bare in mind I have a few more pug ins on IE

Do they mean that it fetches search results faster?
On my PC, when I launch chrome, the window appears instantaneously (a fraction of a second). When I launch IE, it takes several seconds to appear and make itself ready, which feels like an eternity now ;P

Anything over IE8 is pretty solid. I honestly fix more Firefox quirks than IE these days. Feels good not to have to support IE6 and IE7!

indeed, like i said, IE10 is way better. Also for some reason i have no recollection of ever using IE9, so i can't comment on it compared to IE8.

@dsm, much of our dislike comes from the past, not so much with the current version. For a long time, IE was the crappy browser that you had no choice but to figure out how to make do the same thing other browsers could do, unless you wanted to alienate away a large portion of possible users.

As has been said, the hate mainly stems from the IE6 era, it has gotten much better since then (though it still lags a bit behind in terms of standard support - at least it went beyond the bearable mark by now). That said, I'm not that happy about Chrome, I'm afraid it may become the new IE, I lost the count of how many times I saw "HTML5" sites that are Chrome-only in practice (luckily it's mostly demos, but still). That they're pulling off the browser-specific APIs thing and trying to push that like it was the standard doesn't make me happy either (especially a few that are equivalent to HTML5 ones, but are just there to make up for the browsers not bothering to implement them properly - audio tag, anyone?). Also more specific to webkit, but I lost the count of times that something that should work on Opera doesn't, just because the author decided to use the webkit-prefixed properties in the CSS file exclusively (what).

Then again I already stumbled upon behavior that's webkit specific (not sure if it's only in Chrome or webkit in general) and that doesn't rely on non-standard APIs or stuff like that. I once had to figure out why my game wasn't working on Chrome, despite working on IE, Firefox and Opera. Turns out that Chrome parsed script tags in a completely different way the other browsers did, which resulted in trying to use undefined objects. I could only get the code working again by using... document.write, something that's supposed to be avoided like the plague. Thanks, Chrome! (and I thought I already had enough issues with Firefox not liking my code) I'm not sure if the HTML5 standard determines a specific way to parse the script elements or not, but it goes to show how easy it's to make something that works only in whatever Chrome uses without even realizing it.

Also maybe only tangential, but there's something to be said about respecting users. I normally avoid using web apps, but for some thing I'm doing in a group I have to use Google Docs because they have some text file with the proposed tasks in there. Every time I go there I get a message about how my browser is out of date and that I should "upgrade to a modern browser, such as Google Chrome". I'm using the latest version of Opera, which is actually made by one of the main vendors working on the HTML5 standard. Thanks for essentially insulting me, Google! (yes, I know it's just checking if it's IE, Firefox, Chrome or Safari, but c'mon!)

Don't pay much attention to "the hedgehog" in my nick, it's just because "Sik" was already taken =/ By the way, Sik is pronounced like seek, not like sick.

Just build a website that even thinks about doing anything fancy, and then discover that IE doesn't support xyz capability. They liked to have their own way to do things, and while your code would work on 3/4 browsers IE always tended to be the one that just didn't display things the right way, and i'd have to run around looking for a patch. Also lets not forget that tons of users use a variety of diffrent versions of IE, so now you have to make sure you site runs the same across each iteration. Some of this is excusable(such as using something that came out after the particular version of the browser was released.) at the end of the day, developing for IE tends to be a pain in the ass, which is why i have hated it for so long. Of couse IE10 is leagues better than it's predecessors, so i no longer have an undying bate of IE.

Anything over IE8 is pretty solid. I honestly fix more Firefox quirks than IE these days. Feels good not to have to support IE6 and IE7!

At work we support IE7-10 and while 10 is ok IE7 and 8 are both horrible and 9 is starting to show its age(it only works if you don't do anything fancy), For Chrome and Firefox we only support the latest version (since they update automatically most users will have the latest version or atleast one that isn't too far behind)

The big problem with IE really is Microsofts inability/unwillingness to release new versions for old versions of their OS. (XP users with Chrome get automatic updates to the latest version, XP users with IE have to update manually to get IE7 or 8 and can't get IE9 or 10.

Even Vista users can't get IE10 (no technical reasons for this, the update just isn't given to them, IE is basically not free/gratis since you have to pay for both the initial version and upgrades)

I don't suffer from insanity, I'm enjoying every minute of it.The voices in my head may not be real, but they have some good ideas!

IE gets no love for me basically because I consider browsers more or less like petrol. I don't care about it, unless the light turns on (and it was often on back when I used IE).

I have been a Firefox user for years, it became slower and slower... I had to move to chrome which was another world on that system. I have been told Firefox is now much better. I have been told it has HTML5 already. Fine, but nothing broken so far so I'm keeping chrome.